Tag Archives: Organization

There is TONS of great Ed Tech content out on the Internet these days and sifting through it is time consuming and can even be futile. If you have Ed Tech idols that you follow on Twitter or that blog you may find that they also have a Pinterest account as well. If you are not Pinning or at least following Pinners you should be. It is simple, just create an account at Pinterest.com (it can link to your Facebook if you want) and start following some of your favorite people by clicking on the Pinterest logo from their blog or website.

Part 2 of a Series of “How-To” Videos on Evernote

This is the second post in a series of posts with videos on getting familiar with Evernote. If you have been thinking of a tool for managing your work flow, or just need a tool to help you with all your paper, or maybe you want a collaboration tool, or maybe you just want to be paperless, then Evernote is the tool for you! Continue reading →

A Series of “How-To” Videos on Evernote

At the recent Hack the Classroom Event, I did a session on Evernote. As we know Evernote is so robust that a 25 minute session is just not enough time to do it justice. I promised the session attendees that I would create a series of videos to get the most out of Evernote. Well here they are. Continue reading →

A Personal Learning Environment that teachers will love!

I have been radio silent for the past few weeks on the blog but not on Twitter! I have been doing many professional developments for teachers and schools (the presentations can be found under the Professional Development tab) and have done some training on many different apps and web tools. The one I ALWAYS show and spend time on is SymbalooEDU! This amazing and FREE web resource allows teachers to create Continue reading →

If your school is using Google Apps for Education, and you (like me) have been using Google Groups as a discussion forum, I would encourage you to create a Community on Google+ and invite your students to it. You can create topics just like in Groups, but the students can interact with it more like a social media environment. They can post, comment, upload video, take video right on the spot, have a Hangout with other students online, embed YouTube and watch from within the post. The community is secure and private, only those you invite are in there. It is a great way to engage with your students in a more dynamic environment.

Looking for a FREE gradebook option? Here is Engrade. Engrade is easy to use and the bonus is that if you are using Google Apps for Education, and have a Google Site, you can embed the Engrade widget into the site to allow the students to see their grades. Engrade uses the student login to authenticate the user and only displays the information of the user logged in. Schools and teachers are praising Engrade, and I think you will too.

Thanks to Dr. Robert Allen Moody (Doc) of Fort Hays State University for sharing your great work with us!

As always, please post your comments below and join in the conversation.
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We hear all the time about “the cloud” but do we really know what the cloud is and what it does?

Photograph taken by Michael Jastremski

The Cloud or “Cloud Computing” is using applications and resources that are located on a network, usually the Internet instead of on a local computer or device.

To simply explain this, think of when you purchased you last computer or laptop and you wanted to have a word processing program on it. You probably had to spend another $100+ to get Microsoft Word. The software was then installed, probably from a CD, to your computer and there it lives for you to use as long as you own the computer. This is a traditional installation to a local machine. Now imagine that you purchased that same computer and did NOT pay the extra $100 for Microsoft Word. Instead, you went on the internet, logged into your Google account and opened up Google Drive and began to create new documents, spreadsheets, forms, pictures and presentations all from the web. This is cloud computing. You are using the Google resources online to create the same content you could create using a similar locally installed program.

The Cloud can refer to programs or applications that reside on the web, and it can also refers to data storage. The Cloud can offer the ability to collaborate without having to email documents back and forth. Documents and folders can now be shared and edited in real time with others no matter where they are.

Using The Cloud in the classroom can be very powerful. Students can be working on a research project in Science class, save it to their secure Cloud storage area, continue to work on it no matter what computer they are on or where they are at (provided they have an Internet connection.) Upon completion of the assignment the students simply moves the finished document into the Science Homework Submissions folder that is shared with the teacher and viola it is submitted. No papers to lug around, just the opportunity to read and comment on the assignment. The teacher can see the progression of the assignment, as well as have an archive of the students’ work. The student now has a digital collection of their work safe on the web, accessible later for reference or just to see their growth.

The Cloud service I recommend is of course Google Apps for Education. Google apps integrate well together and are compatible with every device I have tried them on. Google Drive has plenty of storage space for students and gives them the ability to share and collaborate with others. Google Drive can create Documents, Spreadsheets, Presentations, Pictures and Forms. Drive can also act as storage for any other digital file. (There are some limitations on file size.)

Recently I was asked “How different is Evernote from MS OneNote” in a comment to my post How Evernote Changed Me, so here will be my attempt at a feature to feature comparison.

Let me start with an explanation of what these programs are intended to do. Evernote and OneNote are software applications (apps) that allow the user to collect digital information, save and organize it in virtual notebooks. That is the simple explanation. This digital collection is organized by virtual notebooks that can be grouped, labeled or tagged, hold just about any digital data (including; audio files, video files, links, websites, documents, files, pdf and images) and be shared. Continue reading →